Organ Repertoire 3 Essay Robert Schummann Final
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Derek Remes Organ Repertoire III - KBD 423 Final Essay Robert Schumann at the Organ: The Classic Romanticist Robert Schumann (1810-1856) was simultaneously a Romanticist and Classicist. His music embodies the Romantic ideals in that it is expressive and individual; at the same time, his music has the Classical characteristics of historicism and polyphony. Throughout his life, Schumann was continually looking to the music of the past, particularly that of J.S. Bach, while at the same time creating highly original, forward-looking works. This dualistic view of Schumann has implications for the interpretation of his music, particularly those works for organ and pedal piano. This essay will focus on the following three sets of works by Schumann: Studien für den Pedalflügel, Op. 56 (Studies for Pedal Piano) Skizzen für den Pedalflügel, Op. 58 (Sketches for Pedal Piano) Sechs Fugen über den Namen BACH, Op. 60 (Six Fugues on the Name of BACH) The 19th century was a period of transition in organ performance. The shift away from the Baroque "ordinary touch" to the pure legato of the late 19th century complicates the interpretation of Schumann's works, which fall somewhere in the middle. In viewing Schumann as both a Romanticist and a Classicist, I will argue for an interpretation of his works that draws on both traditions of organ performance, while noting that this argument is further complicated by the fact that Schumann was primarily a pianist. To understand Schumann as a Romantic, it may be helpful to review the meaning of the word, "Romantic." Put simply, Romanticism values emotion over logic. Burckholder's A History of Western Music says: The word romantic derived from the medieval romance, a poem or tale about heroic events or persons, such as King Arthur or Charlemagne. It connoted something distant, legendary, and fantastic, an imaginary or ideal world far from everyday reality. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, especially in German-speaking lands, writers applied the term to literature and then to art and music. Philosopher and critic Friedrich Schlegel (1772-1829) differentiated "classic" poetry - which he deemed objectively beautiful, limited in scope and theme, and universally valid - from the "romantic" poetry, which transgressed rules and limits, expressing insatiable longing and the richness of nature. Like political liberalism and idealist philosophy, Romantic art focused on the individual and on expression of the self. As the word gained currency, composers and artists who came of age in the 1820's, such as Berlioz, Chopin, Schumann, and Liszt, conceived of themselves as "romantics." By the mid-nineteenth century, Schlegel's dichotomy seemed to distinguish the elegant, natural, simple, clear, formally closed, and universally appealing (and therefore classic) music of Haydn and Mozart from the music the second quarter of the nineteenth century, marked as Romantic because of its search for the original, interesting, evocative, individual, expressive, or extreme.1 Beethoven can be seen as a stylistic bridge between the Classical and Romantic eras, sometimes chronologically divided at 1815 with Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo. The division by this date recalls the political circumstances leading up to the 19th century that had an effect on the development of Romanticism in music. The French Revolutions of 1789-1815 brought about a new world order that emphasized citizenship, liberty, equality, and brotherhood. War and inflation impoverished the aristocracy, which led to the decline of patronage and therefore support for musicians. According to Burckholder, "The typical musician no longer served a prince or church but made a living as a free agent through public performance, teaching, composing on commission, or creating music for publication."2 The 19th century also saw the rise of virtuosos, such as Franz Liszt and Nicolò Paganini, and specialization by instrument, as with Fryderyk Chopin and the piano. Burckholder continues, "While patrons had expected their employees to play several instruments and, like Bach and Haydn, compose in most genres, musicians were now competing in an open market and often found a niche through specialization."3 As the aristocracy declined, the industrial revolution lowered prices and helped fueled the growth of the middle class, who now demanded music to play domestically, creating a boom in music publishing.4 This newly empowered middle class had leisure time and money to devote to music, and the centerpiece of middle class music making was the piano. The piano took on new prominence in the 19th century, and many innovations in piano design occurred from 1820-1850. An understanding of these changes effects the performance and registration of Schumann's piano works at the organ: the damper pedal allowed greater resonance; the metal frame (introduced in England in the 1820's) allowed higher string tension and therefore greater volume, longer sustain and better legato; felt hammers enabled a wider dynamic range and better control; the range was extended to six octaves by 1820, and 7 octaves by 1850; the double-escapement action, introduced by Parisian builder Sébastian Erard in 1821, allowed rapid repetition of single notes and therefore greater virtuosity.5 The pedal piano was invented around 1800 when Johann Gottlieb Wagner added a pedal keyboard to a square piano.6 By the 1840's the instrument had developed and seemed to have a promising future.7 According to Jon Laukvig, "The early pedal pianos were frequently only equipped with pulldowns, and the mechanism was arranged so the pedal notes sounded in the 16' range. The Pleyel firm developed independent ranks of strings in the 16' and 8' range for the pedal."8 Concerning composition for pedal piano, Schumann wrote, "Wonderful effects can be achieved with it."9 Clara Schumann also wrote, "On 24 April [1845] we received on loan a pedalboard for beneath the piano, which has given us much pleasure. Its primary purpose was to enable us to practise our organ playing, but Robert soon discovered a further interest in this instrument."10 Laukvik also notes, "At first the Schumanns aimed at organ practice (surely the works of Johann Sebastian Bach), but the instrument's sound eventually inspired original compositions "11 The piano was a truly modern machine, with thousands of moving parts, and was indispensible for home music making as well as public concerts (a concept pioneered by Franz Liszt). According to Burckholder, the design improvements of the 19th century piano allowed a pianist to "express a complete musical thought almost as well as an entire orchestra, yet more personally."12 The unique abilities of the piano contributed to the development of a new musical idiom. Deemed the "early Romantic style," the new idiom featured, according to Burckholder, "tuneful melodies, attractive accompaniments, little counterpoint, relatively uniform rhythm and level of difficulty from measure to measure, strong musical and extra-musical imagery, evocative titles, national or exotic associations, familiar chords and progressions interspersed with dramatic or colorful harmonic contrasts, predictable four-bar phrasing, simple songlike forms, and idiomatic writing that exploited the textures, sonorities and dynamic contrasts available on the modern piano."13 Schumann's character pieces, such as Carnaval, Papillon, Lieder-Album für die Jugend, fit neatly into this category. A key aspect of the early Romantic style, and of Romanticism in general, is that, according to Burckholder, "Originality was now marked, not by how one treated conventional material, as in the Classic era, but by the material itself."14 This idea is critical to understanding Schumann's dual role as both Romanticist and Classicist - his compositions for organ fit both categories because they treat original material in conventional ways, such as the use of strict counterpoint. If Romanticism values emotion over logic, Schumann is the archetype. He wrote, "I hate everything that does not come from innermost urge."15 Like many Romantics, Schumann also loved nature. Upon returning to Leipzig after a poetic vacation in Southern Germany, he wrote, "Nature, where do I find it here... No valley, no mountain, no woodland, where I could so really muse."16 Schumann also founded the secretive Davidsbund (David's Society), which met regularly in the Leipzig "Kaffeebaum" to exchange ideas about the music. According to Georg Eismann, "Name-giver and ideal of the members of the society was the royal singer David. Just as he, ages ago, had fought against the Philistines and triumphed, so did the members of the society want to struggle against every manifestation of philistinism. Did not the maxim given out by Schumann run: 'Davidsbündler, that is, youths and men, you should slay the philistines, musical and other.'"17 Eismann continues, "In genuinely Romantic fashion, Schumann personified the combative side of his being as 'Florestan,' whose name was taken from Beethoven's revolutionary opera 'Fidelio.' [...] But also the other aspect of Schumann's artistic double-nature: the enthusiastic 'Eusebius,' filled with yearning for the sublime, therewith expresses himself poetically."18 These alter egos, which Schumann inhabited in his writings, are some of his most thoroughly Romantic creations. Classicism ran concurrent to Romanticism during the 19th century, and was marked by an awareness of the past and a desire to continue its tradition, especially in the use of learned counterpoint.